Our Story

GENESIS: PROBLEM AND SOLUTION

As two corporate lawyers in New York City, we are well aware of the need to wake up each morning and perform at a high level throughout the day (even if the night before involved a few too many drinks). We wanted to create an alternative to chugging a bottle of Gatorade, eating dollar pizza at 3AM and popping a few Advils in the morning before crawling into the office.

Enough was enough. In summer of 2018, we committed to finding a better solution. Like good lawyers, we started with some research. After digging into the mechanics and causes of hangovers, we realized that much of the science points to the liver's ability to metabolize and remove the toxic by-product acetaldehyde from the body.

Then the light bulb went off. We remembered the hangover remedy drinks popular in South Korea such as Condition (컨디션), 808 Dawn (여명 808) and Morning Care (모닝케어), which in our experience were effective. In fact, one of our co-founder's tried them all when partying in Seoul way back in 2008 to find the most effective one. So we thought, let's find out what they use.

One of the main ingredients in the South Korean drinks turned out to be dihydromyricetin (DHM), an extract of an raisin tree found in Asia. DHM has been consumed via tea and other traditional methods for centuries in East Asia. More recently, South Korean hangover products have been using DHM with resounding success. The more we looked into DHM, the more excited we got that we could combine DHM with what we learned to bring the best product to market in the US.

Thinking we were onto something, we called our third team member (a doctor with an MBA from Duke University), and together, through our own research and conversations with academic researchers, medical doctors, chemists, pharmacologists and nutraceutical specialists, created the FDA-compliant alpha-version chewable HangOn tablet.

GENESIS: SO WHY HANGON?

Despite the efficacy of DHM based products, we found that it was annoying to have to stop by a convenient store to buy one and then carry a bottle (or two or three if you were with friends) and walk around with an awkward bulge in your pockets or even worse, walk into a busy bar with a 7/11 bag and some bottles.

To avoid the bulge, some people would chug them in one shot before heading into the bar. That memory was the genesis of the Hangon idea, and why we decided to figure out a way to package DHM and other antioxidants and amino acids into an easy to carry, sleek product that is discrete as a pack of gum. HangOn was the result of months of work, and we have created a great tasting chewable tablet that is discrete enough for professional settings.